Grating The Nutmeg

Famine Irish, lace-curtain Irish, shanty Irish: the Irish Diaspora has shaped Connecticut's European immigrant history from the 1840s.  Traces of Irish history and culture in the state are not only found in archival and artifact collections but also through the historic buildings, neighborhoods, and cemeteries that stand across the state. Whether they were immigrants, expatriates, refugees, or indentured servants when they arrived from Ireland, 14 percent of Connecticut's current residents claim Irish ancestry.   In today's episode, we take you to a new exhibition, A Journey of Hope: The Irish American Immigrant Experience curated by Ireland's Great Hunger Museum of Fairfield now on exhibit at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum. The exhibit has about 30 art pieces on view ranging from a 1714 map of Ireland to contemporary paintings completed in 2019. For anyone who's watching The Gilded Age television show, a trip to the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion will immerse you in French Second Empire grandeur of the type